Trying to make up for about a decade of neglect since the 360 swap. About halfway done with the Fitech conversion. Waiting on the ForceFuel unit to get returned after I broke the ground stud. Wiring is a mess because everything is pulled out for access. New Tuff Stuff one wire Alternator at the bottom left. Lokar cables all in place, pretty happy with them. Up by the washer reservoir you can see the relay box that Fitech is now shipping. Great idea, moving to relayed power. Unfortunately the harness coming off the throttle body is now completely bundled, no modification without a ton of effort. But, running across the heater hoses, at least it's away from the plug wires and distributor.
360 originally done somewhere around 2012. Stock lower end, .30 over, Comp 268H .454 flat tappet cam, 974 heads. Intake manifold is actually port matched to the heads.
Crappy faux chrome valve covers rust visibly in a couple of years. Shocker. Summit headers have similar surface rust but haven't thinned out or worn through yet.
On the list:
-Install the ForceFuel up where the charcoal canister used it be, plumb it and wire it.
-Fresh plugs, spiral core wires, and cap/rotor ahead of trying to start the Fitech.
-Headlight relay and H4 housing conversion. Fun fact, there's a big 'ol pink wire on the driver's side B+ splice that used to go to the Lean Burn computer but will make a perfect tap point to avoid yet ANOTHER new ring on the battery terminal!
-Cleaning up some custom gauge wiring under the dash.
-More deletion of unneeded wires under the hood.
-Secure the alternator wire to the crossbrace with nicer zip ties. This may get relocated to run across the header panel if it causes RFI issues. I'm already fabbing up a new harness for the headlights.
-K-car brake booster is next after I get it all running. Maybe new master cylinder. This booster has just never liked the lower vacuum of this engine, and is over 20 years old itself. Worried about what might happen to the brake lines when I start yanking on that stuff.
The Fitech is the big unknown right now. I may get lucky and it works with the Mopar ignition system just fine. If not, I'm looking at a couple of branching options. Number one is convert to Fitech timing control by buying an MSD distributor with the lockout and phaseable rotor, which is necessary to use with EFI since you mechanically advance the rotor and then the computer retards the spark to compensate. Fitech computer will also fire the coil for you, eliminating an ignition box. Number two is buy a distributor from BluePrint Engines that takes a phaseable rotor and can basically do the same thing. Number three is buy a new Mopar type distributor and convert to a CDI system with a tach output. Number four is spend another $1-200 and buy a complete Progression Ignition unit and let it digitally control the entire timing system and spit an RPM signal out to the Fitech. Can't really make any decisions until I start it up for the first time and find out how well it works.
As usual, every job on the car is 11x more difficult than it needs to be, nothing comes apart without being sawed or drilled, and I never have the tools or parts I need. Feels just like being 18 again.
